Cancun COP16 attendees fall for the old “dihydrogen monoxide” petition as well as signing up to cripple the U.S. Economy

Readers may remember this famous Penn and Teller video from 2006 where they get well meaning (but non thinking) people to sign up to ban “dihydrogen monoxide” (DHMO), which is an “evil” chemical found in our lakes, rivers, oceans, and even our food!

Yeah, they signed up to ban water. Now watch the video from the Cancun climate conference, you’d think some of these folks would have enough science background (from their work in complex climate issues) to realize what they are signing, but sadly, no.

Some people will sign anything that includes phrases like, ”global effort,” “international community,” and “planetary.” Such was the case at COP 16, this year’s United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico.

This year, CFACT students created two mock-petitions to test U.N. Delegates. The first asked participants to help destabilize the United States economy, the second to ban water.

The first project, entitled “Petition to Set a Global Standard” sought to isolate and punish the United States of America for defying the international community, by refusing to bite, hook, line and sinker on the bait that is the Kyoto Protocol. The petition went so far as to encourage the United Nations to impose tariffs and trade restrictions on the U.S. in a scheme to destabilize the nation’s economy. Specifically, the scheme seeks to lower the U.S. GDP by 6% over a ten year period, unless the U.S. signs a U.N. treaty on global warming.

This would be an extremely radical move by the United Nations. Even so, radical left-wing environmentalists from around the world scrambled eagerly to sign.

The second project was as successful as the first. It was euphemistically entitled “Petition to Ban the Use of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO)” (translation water). It was designed to show that if official U.N. delegates could be duped by college students into banning water, that they could essentially fall for anything, including pseudo-scientific studies which claim to show that global warming is man-caused.

Despite the apparently not-so-obvious reference to H2O, almost every delegate that collegian students approached signed their petition to ban that all too dangerous substance, which contributes to the greenhouse effect, is the major substance in acid rain, and is fatal if inhaled.

Perhaps together, the footage associated with these two projects will illustrate to mainstream America the radical lengths many current U.N. delegates are willing to go to carry out an agenda no more ethical, plausible or practical than the banning water.

I confess I wouldn’t have known what “Dihydrogen Monoxide” is. But I expect I’d have asked, “what is it? where does it come from? who makes it? why is it bad?”

A charity once tried to sign me up to their anti-drugs programme which they said was very successful. I asked them, “so, how do you measure your success? how many of people you’ve helped stay off drugs?” He didn’t know. His colleague didn’t know. They rang their boss, who didn’t know. “Yeah but it is really successful!!” OK, but how do you know?

Well, it’s just frightening how thick these people are and how much power they are given by the powers that be. That is the really scary thing, to my mind. Not so much the people in the video but the politicians, who are at least as thick on the issue. Gordon Brown, for example. David Milliband, for another. I could go on and on and on.

This is my favourite Cancun video though, Bureaucrats Gone Wild:

You’ve probably all already seen it, so apologies if that’s the case. I know the tune in the video but can’t name the artist – 60’s number?

James Sexton says: December 8, 2010 at 9:47 am: This is somewhat reminiscent of the Man-show and their petition to end woman suffrage. They got several signatures, too, from women.

Well, there are some English words that should be banned from use because their meanings are very confusing in relation to similar words in common use. “Suffrage” is one and “restive” is another. I’m sure others can come up with man more.

[I do not recommend banning “man” …. Though many in Cancun seems to want to do just that. 8<) Robt]

LoL…. Classic. The arrogance and the ignorance of these bureaucrats and activists. It’s scary that they have so much influence over our lives…..
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Kitefreak says:
December 8, 2010 at 9:43 am
You’ve probably all already seen it, so apologies if that’s the case. I know the tune in the video but can’t name the artist – 60′s number?
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And this was the U.N. Delegates, not the NGO’s or activists?? I wonder if they were careful about that? Displaying my own ignorance here, but are all of the delegates involved in the negotiations? Is there just one per country? That first girl/woman that signed looked like a kid!

I hope to heck that CFACT and everyone notifies every media outlet they can think of about this video.

Jeez, a high school sophomore should be able to figure that out in about five seconds of rumination! It would be interesting to see who signed, frankly I’m curious just who attendeds these things anyway? Scientists? Politicians? Bloggers? Certianly seems quite a bit more ticky-tackey than the Save the Planet Conceit and Pomp of Copenhagen.

I have been the chief operator of a DHMO company for almost 30 years! They’ll probably want to imprison me! I’ve been shipping DHMO through a pipeline directly to 400 homes, 24 hours a day. Uh oh! I’m in trouble!

If this is true, the it is certian that the people working in AGW are to specialized and from the shallow end of the intellegence pool. The petition to ban water has been going around from time to time for 15+years. This student did it in Cityville, or that student did it TownCity. Perhaps a little Clorine would help (with our without that villian Sodium.).

Although I supose I shouldn’t be surprised, one of the founders of Greenpeace quit the movement when the exec board of Greenpeace was considering taking a stand banning Clorine -because of CFC’s destroying the atomosphere. He was like ‘really, you want to ban an element? How would we even do that?’

I use a gaseous state of HOH to produce another very dangerous type of energy. The HOH state I use can cause severe burns if engulfed, if discharged with great enough kinetic energy it will lacerate and/or sever limbs. When it is returned to its liquid state, the purity is such that if consumbed over extended periods of time, may leach nutrients from the bloodstream and cause severe anemia.

And yes, I’m linking this for all to see (at least those I can reach).

Oh, my, I realize that this is serious and I shouldn’t really laugh, but I can’t help but do it anyway. Have NONE of these people seen P&T’s stunt on You-Tube?

When I was a kid, back before the days of being able to e-mail jokes, I remember my dad having a much photocopied (probably from an original carbon copy, no less) “screed” against the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide, and even as a kid I thought it was hilarious (and who would fall for that, anyway?) and right along with the Nacirema in terms of sarcasm.

I had great parents when it came to expecting critical thinking from their kids.

Max@10:01…Come on now. Since when is CH00H considered ethanol. It has been over 40 years since my chem. classes and even I remember that there are 2 carbons and a single oxygen in ethanol C2H50H. Or is this an attempt to see how little attention is paid by the readers of this blog?

Things like this just escape most people. They have other things on their tiny minds, besides Carbon ( 3rd most common element in the universe), Water (70% of the surface area of this rock), etc., etc. Such as why they can’t get a signal to tweet their latest ( and no doubt infrequent), synaptic connection.

@Max Hugoson, December 8, 2010 at 10:01 am
CHOOH is methanoic acid and probably not very nice to imbibe. Ethyl alcohol is CH3CH2OH, it is found in many pleasing beverages, most especially single malt whiskies, where it is an essential component.

A small smile, a knowing wink. What’s the diffrence to the likes of these? CO2, Freon, DHMO, DDT all represent the same risks and all must be banned! Some of those signers may have been “Lead Authors” ya never know, the dangers og DHMO may make the big time, take the place of Coral Bleaching or Ocean Acidification or who knows what as the NEXT BIG MAN INDUCED…must go take my meds.

I think that not everyone would know what Di-hydrogen monoxide was straight away, if it was me the penny would drop eventually or possibly straight away there is no way that I can know. Like Stefan though, I always ask a lot of questions before I sign petitions.

On the subject of words that sound as if they mean the opposite of what they actually mean. I always found the phrase “The exception that proves the rule” baffling. Surely, I thought, it should be the exception that disproves the rule. The answer of course is that the word “Prove” can mean put to the test. this is why prototype vehicles are ‘put to the test’ on a proving ground.

It may be satire but it actually proves a very interesting point that is exploited by nearly all con artists.

You start with a proposition that you know that the target will be sympathetic to and will want to believe. The rest is easy and it clearly demonstrates how easy it is to sell man-made global warming guilt-trip. (after all, particularly in the West, we all tend to feel a little bit guilty about the fact that we live better off than any generation that has ever lived and far better off than 6 billion others currently alive)

It is the same principle used by big box electronics stores all the time. The target has just purchased a wonderful expensive piece of electronics or new speakers (where markup is perhaps 20% or less, and where the price has often been discounted with rebates and with a “guaranteed low price”). The next step is for the sales person to convince the target that in order to get the best performance from their purchase they cannot possibly use ordinary copper wires to connect the electronics. The customer is naturally proud of the new purchase and will often throw in a couple of hundred extra dollars at some “special” cables with special properties (no discount). Unwittingly the target has just bought a product with a mark up of several hundred percent and one that will not make one wit of audible or visible difference (compared to adequate spec ordinary cables) – despite all the nonsense marketing technobable and custom packaging.

The fact that this type of “con” works every day out in the open and that nobody bats an eye is an indictment of our western school system. Nobody is being taught critical thinking anymore. The latest generation appears to have an even higher percentage of sheeple than the last. Where this will take us nobody really knows but, for sure, despite all our technology, Western Society appears especially vulnerable to manipulation by con artists and the powerful people pulling the strings behind Can’tcon know this all to well.

Dave Springer says:
December 8, 2010 at 10:03 amDihydrogen monoxide is a widely used industrial solvent which is harmless in pure liquid form but evaporates into a powerful greenhouse gas when exposed to air.

Not quite harmless – very high doses are in fact toxic to humans. It is also, as pointed out above, harmful if inhaled in large quantities.

…The target has just purchased a wonderful expensive piece of electronics or new speakers (where markup is perhaps 20% or less, and where the price has often been discounted with rebates and with a “guaranteed low price”). The next step is for the sales person to convince the target that in order to get the best performance from their purchase they cannot possibly use ordinary copper wires to connect the electronics. The customer is naturally proud of the new purchase and will often throw in a couple of hundred extra dollars at some “special” cables with special properties (no discount). Unwittingly the target has just bought a product with a mark up of several hundred percent and one that will not make one wit of audible or visible difference (compared to adequate spec ordinary cables) – despite all the nonsense marketing technobable and custom packaging.

Whats worse is it’s not just the customers being fooled by this. I’ve talked to ex-employees of such places who will swear to me that Monster HDMI cables will make a huge difference someone’s audio/visual experience. I then very slowly explain how digital signals work. Some of them understand but fail to see how it matters in the discussion, not until later anyway. Don’t look at every employee of such places and think they’re a con artist, many of them actually believe the crap they’re spouting.

PROVO — Richard Killpack buried his face in his hands. His wife, Jennete, stared straight ahead, seemingly in shock.
After a 3 1/2-week trial, it took a Provo jury almost six hours Tuesday to find Jennete Killpack, 29, guilty of killing her 4-year-old daughter in June 2002. Richard Killpack was found not guilty.

The split verdict surprised Utah County prosecutors, who told the eight-member jury that Richard Killpack, 37, was equally culpable of child abuse homicide because he helped his wife force water down their adopted daughter’s throat on June 9, 2002. Cassandra Killpack died later that night of what medical personnel classified as forced water intoxication, which caused her brain to swell and the sodium in her body to drop to fatal levels.

So its not so funny, is it? A murder weapon, as the courts have ruled. It can also be used as a weapon in water cannons, which are banned from civilian possession. Should we regulate and license water users, lest they kill others? How many more must die? Perhaps we should ban liter-size and above, similar to the assault weapons bans.

We are cross-posted to http://www.freerepublic.com with this report. And, yes, there are – even in the United States – companies that actually “make” money exploiting people’s unthinking desire for DHMO.

Unfortunately, several users at that site have also reported that their wells are cominated regularly with DiHydrogen MonOxide.

I use the Dihydrogen Monoxide bit every semester, including the Penn and Teller video and a couple of very official-looking “news reports,” in an ongoing but ultimately futile attempt to make my students pay attention to what they’re buying into.

Back in 2004 the city of Aliso Viejo in California almost banned Styrofoam cups at city-sponsored events after learning that the dangerous chemical was used in their making. It was put on the city agenda by a paralegal who, according to City Manager David J. Norman, “did bad research.” (Local officials nearly fall for H2O hoax – MSNBC).

Of course, not all is lost. Norman said they may still ban the cups because, “If you get Styrofoam into the water and it breaks apart, it’s virtually impossible to clean up.”

Or to put it another way — the foam can pollute the dihydrogen monoxide.

So its not so funny, is it? A murder weapon, as the courts have ruled. It can also be used as a weapon in water cannons, which are banned from civilian possession. Should we regulate and license water users, lest they kill others? How many more must die? Perhaps we should ban liter-size and above, similar to the assault weapons bans.

It can also be used as part of a silencer for small caliber rifles. Simply fill a quart plastic bottle about 1/4 full and duck tape it to the muzzle, being sure to keep the muzzle lowered until you shoot. :)

That was a good chuckle. Politicians and scientists will never mix happily.
Just goes to show that language, and the way we communicate is all important.
Take medical Doctors of yesteryear – all speaking latin nouns, because they do not want to make the patient aware of their ignorance concerning the diagnosis.
Once again, our (western ) lack of good education brings out the gullibility in the majority of people.

I see a couple of people claiming that inhalation of oxane is not toxic. This is true and false. The same can be said for HCN gas. You can live forever in an atmosphere of 3 ppm HCN. It isn’t the chemical that kills, it is the dose. Oxygen too is toxic, if breathed in a pressurized environment. That is why deep sea diving “air” is up to 98% helium.

R Taylor says:
December 8, 2010 at 10:41 am
Not that it would matter to the signers, but the claim that DHMO is fatal if inhaled is false. Anyone breathing the natural atmosphere inhales it with every breath, and most of us die of other causes.

The gaseous form is pretty harmless to breathe (if at room temperature), but the liquid form can kill you if inhaled in sufficient quantities, as noted by Stephen Lewis at 11:20.

Someone should have brought along a petition to Save the Naugas, which had once been hunted to near-extinction for their valuable hides (hydes). I know someone who had one, set up a little stand at his college campus community center in the 1970’s, right next to a chair covered in the offending material. Yes, people signed the petition.

Apparently this has caused quite a stir over the years, forcing Uniroyal, the “maker” of Naugahyde, to set up a website where they explain how Naugas actually can harmlessly shed their skins.http://www.naugahyde.com/ – click on “Nauga History.”

Although I suspect this might be Dangerous Corporate Misinformation as the “Naugas” they present look nothing like the Nauga portrayed by Gary Larson when he stated the Naugas triumphant return to healthy population sizes in the wilderness in a special The Far Side cartoon.

The one I love to quote relates to those “it’s one atom away from . . .” some bad chemical or another. Today, you are breathing in material that is ONE ATOM AWAY FROM THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT IN ZYCLONE B!!. Air is 78% N2. Take away one N, substitute a C and you have the CN ion.

Or rather-
Re: Robbins Mitchell: December 8, 2010 at 11:11 am
—————————————————–
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax
“Under the 2005 revisions of IUPAC nomenclature of inorganic chemistry, there is no single correct name for every compound.”

It seems they were ‘partying like there was no tomorrow’ when the Cancun conference began. Perhaps the delegates were left with plenty of goodwill but just sufficient brain power to sign these foolish petitions – or any more dangerous documents foisted on them by the organizers of the conference. The upshot: the organizers and their cronies could continue to celebrate for some time but for the rest of us, the party would be over.

Amazingly enough, we use this stuff in the hospital! On patients! Sometimes we mix it with sodium and chlorine, or even potassium! We stick it on their skin, in wounds, on eyes! Even in the operating room!

R Taylor says:
December 8, 2010 at 10:41 am
Not that it would matter to the signers, but the claim that DHMO is fatal if inhaled is false. Anyone breathing the natural atmosphere inhales it with every breath, and most of us die of other causes.

The gaseous form is pretty harmless to breathe (if at room temperature), but the liquid form can kill you if inhaled in sufficient quantities, as noted by Stephen Lewis at 11:20.
—-
Simple experiment: Jump into the pool (sans breathing apparatus,) submerge your head, inhale. Note the effects.

It isnt the natural DHMO that is the real problem, it is the man made hydrogen hydroxide HOH that is the problem. Our polluting ways are contaminating the natural DHMO with evil, global warming causing, man made, hydrogen hydroxide. We are all doomed if we dont do something.

What can you say. The Di-Hydrogen Monoxide snare isn’t even new, that site has been around for years. You’d think they would have heard of it by now.

If you’re familiar with the standard chemical nomenclature, the very name gives it away. Of course, the Progressives tend rather strongly to avoid technical subjects in their education. Too much reality, I think.

I would’nt get carried away with this. You have no idea how many people may have refused to sign, or asked awkward questions. (They would obviously not have made the final video)

This is just spin, adopting the same tactics as any pro AGW group. It shows and means nothing.

It shows how gullible they are; it shows none of them have had a chemistry class in their life; and it shows extreme herd mentality.

And the lesson obtained means we should also question the intelligence of all those who signed the petition. We don’t have to worry about those who didn’t sign; hopefully there were a few who were brave enough to ask probing questions, but I’ll ask them:

Hey, CFACT students, was there ANYBODY that knew what dihydrogen monoxide was, or that hesitated signing a petition to criple the U.S. economy?

You can’t automatically assume the counter argument–we’ll see what their response is.

Dave Andrews says:
December 8, 2010 at 1:10 pm
I would’nt get carried away with this. You have no idea how many people may have refused to sign, or asked awkward questions. (They would obviously not have made the final video)

This is just spin, adopting the same tactics as any pro AGW group. It shows and means nothing.

___________

Dave’s a total buzz-kill.

And if you truly believe what you wrote, I suggest you try the experiment yourself. As the saying goes, ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see”. Zealots, on all sides, tend to be blind.

The key here is the zealots on the AGW side are being used by governments to gain power and redistribute wealth (mostly to their own friends and pockets).

DHMO in its solid state is pretty lethal. Ask any Scottish motorist about its effect on transport. Get the ouija board out and have a word with the dozen,or so, pensioners per hour who, thanks to greedy and misguided government and rapacious energy suppliers, are dying of hypothermia!

Quote: “I would’nt get carried away with this. You have no idea how many people may have refused to sign, or asked awkward questions. (They would obviously not have made the final video)”

It clearly states in the video that EVERYONE that they approached and asked to sign, did so. So there was no video available of anyone declining, because they did not find anyone who did decline.

That is how stupid those ecoalarmists are. If it matches their pattern that they continuously condition themselves to follow, then they will automatically knee-jerk thoughtlessly into supporting their cause due to the repeatedly conditioned reflex response.

As a vapour, this substance is a potent greenhouse gas. It is probably the cause of almost all of the greenhouse effect, in fact.

As a liquid, it can be, as has been noted, used as a torture devise, and can even kill. It has been often used as a weapon, even in domestic crowd control, particularly by the US. It is so common now that every person alive will have a significant and measurable concentration of it in their body. In this form it is also used for power generation, it is that potent. It is also used in nuclear power stations and converted to its gaseous form at then released into the atmosphere to become a vapour, with all the potent greenhouse effect this causes (see above). This is entirely unregulated.

In its solid form it can be even more dangerous. There is such a concentration of it in some European countries that people are regularly engulfed in ‘falls’ of this substance. People have even been buried in it, causing death in many instances. It is a major menace to all forms of land traffic when this happens, and causes many deaths through accidents. It has been shown conclusively that it can even destroy large ocean liners, or even battleships and aircraft carriers. The problem is so acute that navies will have constant ‘radar’ watch for this substance in this solid form. Reports from NOAA indicate that the amount of this substance in solid form is increasing in the order of millions of square miles every year.

I hereby call for an immediate and total ban on this substance in all forms at the Cancun Gaia Festival Echo Chamber. I also call for all delegates and attendees to be tested on entry and refused admittance while they have this substance in their bodies.

You must immediately pressure your elected officials to create an immediate worldwide ban on this substance.

In the ‘bologsphere’ there are already numbers of ‘anti-science’ blogs of ‘breath-taking ignorance’ trying to claim this substance is actually harmless. Some even go as far as claiming it is essential! Links have been made between these blogs and people claiming second hand smoke is good for you, DDT saves lives, and that Carbon is merely plant food.

Sigh. Not nearly as much fun as making fun of them, but I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised – the majority of delegates will be politicians, not scientists, right? There in Cancun having taken the word of the IPCC and their government’s scientist, rather than knowing diddly about science themselves. You’d still hope they’d have the brains to not sign a petition to ban something they know nothing about. Obviously not.

Max Hugoson says:
December 8, 2010 at 10:01 am
says:
“…seems the people at Cancun already are doing nothing but CHOOH consumption.”

Since ethynol, as has been pointed out, is C2H5OH, perhaps Max is just a little dyslexic. Maybe he meant HOOCH (For those with English as a second language, hooch is defined as ” liquor surreptitiously made or obtained.”)

gcb says: December 8, 2010 at 10:57 am
…
Not quite harmless – very high doses are in fact toxic to humans. It is also, as pointed out above, harmful if inhaled in large quantities.
===================================
Mostly harmless?

I think these morons would still sign the petition even if they knew it was to ban water. Look what they are doing in California to deny water to farmers. These are the same people who are in favor of turning food into ethanol. They want to reduce the population. Obama’s current science czar has written books on the subject. So why would these global elitists care if billions died of thirst? They would be exempt from the ban on water, just as they are exempt from there own edict that people should travel less to reduce the output of CO2.

I am equally or more concerned about hydric acid. It is a new threat to children and other living creatures that no one has yet mentioned.

Not only did the USA use hydric acid for “torture” there, as had been pointed out, but since they have been in Iraq there has been an unprecedented increase in human suffrage that has also not been addressed. We should also bring this to the attention of the geniuses in Amnesty International and UNESCO.

On the serious side, it is doubtful that any of those signing the petitions where actually delegates. More likely they were just kids (okay maybe twenty-somethings) manning the booths in the exhibit hall.

Since ethynol, as has been pointed out, is C2H5OH, perhaps Max is just a little dyslexic. Maybe he meant HOOCH (For those with English as a second language, hooch is defined as ” liquor surreptitiously made or obtained.”)

A long time ago I was able to get 4the idiots of my day (global cooling, nuclear winter, backyard incinerators, etc) agitated about Hydrogen Hydroxide (which this non-chemist thinks is more precise a name than DHMO is).

somehow i think that if the people who were going to these meetings had to pay for it out of their own pocket, there would be many fewer individuals who felt strongly enough to travel across the planet to “save the world”

i want to hear the opinion of the guys that had to buy their own plane ticket.

R Taylor says:
December 8, 2010 at 10:41 am
Not that it would matter to the signers, but the claim that DHMO is fatal if inhaled is false. Anyone breathing the natural atmosphere inhales it with every breath, and most of us die of other causes.

I would’nt get carried away with this. You have no idea how many people may have refused to sign, or asked awkward questions. (They would obviously not have made the final video)

This is just spin, adopting the same tactics as any pro AGW group. It shows and means nothing.

It shows how gullible they are; it shows none of them have had a chemistry class in their life; and it shows extreme herd mentality.

And the lesson obtained means we should also question the intelligence of all those who signed the petition. We don’t have to worry about those who didn’t sign; hopefully there were a few who were brave enough to ask probing questions, but I’ll ask them:

Hey, CFACT students, was there ANYBODY that knew what dihydrogen monoxide was, or that hesitated signing a petition to criple the U.S. economy?

You can’t automatically assume the counter argument–we’ll see what their response is.

Conformity and compliance are often survival traits, unless your a lemming or a mark.

I have to disagree with this statement, “Well, there are some English words that should be banned from use because their meanings are very confusing in relation to similar words in common use. “Suffrage” is one and “restive” is another. I’m sure others can come up with man[y] more.”

The goal should be to educate poeple rather than “idiot-down” a language. A person’s lack of understanding says something about them rather than something about anything else…

A few people have wondered whether anybody knew what dihydrogen monoxide actually was and caught on. Surprisingly, not a single person did! Our CFACT Collegians students wandered the halls for a couple of hours collecting signatures for the petitions, and while some people didn’t sign because they didn’t know enough about it, no one was intelligent enough to call us out on the trick!

You gotta laugh, but it really is saddening to realize how clueless these people are.

I think that the number of people who signed does not surprise me (see the recent “is Obama a Keynesian?” experiment) but it does disappoint me that so much of our life is driven by people that respond literally to sound bytes (bites is to large a quantity) with little drive to actually understand the question.

Wanting to be part of this historic moment is what got us the government we have.

Peter,
I would be VERY careful with oxygen dihydride if you have any since many hydrides decompose to explosive hydrogen gas when they come in contact w/ water. Oxygen dihydride may be one of them.
BAC

It isn’t “dihydrogen monoxide” in any case. It is hydrogen hydroxide, (HOH), even a worse pollutant, with the log of hydrogen ion concentration of 7 times the minimum of 1! Anyone with a high school education should know the dangers of hydroxide.

In parallel news, there is currently a campaign to stop the Pacific gateway pipeline in British Columbia because it goes “through the Great Bear Rainforest,” and will ruin “pristine wilderness,” that has the simple folk who read the Huffington Post in a frenzy.

Except that the pipeline doesn’t got through the GBRF or “pristine wilderness” – unless you define “pristine wilderness” as a long existing railway and highway corridor with several cities and many towns along it.

By the way, in case you don’t already get it, don’t believe ANYTHING the greenies are saying about the oil sands. It is a very, very, very fat cash cow that they are trying very hard to milk/extort.

I expect the BBC’s Richard Black to report on the dangers of di-hydrogen monoxide. He seems to report anything any ‘environmentalist’ tells him, and now many of them have been alerted to its dangers by the person doing this survey.

As to the toxicology of hydrogen oxide, this was studied long ago although I do not have the paper at hand. It described the LD50 in centimeters of depth (after a fall from a 12m high board) for various species.
For example,
cat 12cm
cat in bag with rock 4cm
fish none observed

Dihydrogen monoxide gas isn’t only fatal if inhaled at high temperature and pressure – it can also kill at low temperature, as anyone who has ever been caught in a serious mountain fog can tell you. This vapour is deadly.

Not only that – it dissolves human tissue! Spend a couple of months in your spa if you don’t believe me …

Seriously, you have to wonder what rock these people have been living under if not one of them has ever come across this ancient and oft repeated joke. What else have they never heard of? I would love to be there asking for help to get my inheritance out of Nigeria. I can’t see why being Caucasian would necessarily hurt my chances, either.

No, CHOOH is not ethanol. A reasonable synonym for Ethanol would be ‘methyl carbinol.’ Ooooooo! Sounds nasty, doesn’t it? It is a toxic chemical, an industrial solvent and a gasoline contaminant, kills over 100,000 Americans every year, and does over $200 billion in damages in the US alone. Maybe we should ban the stuff. Oh, wait…

The really sad thing about this is that, even after having their gullibility so nakedly exposed, most of these clucks will still continue to think of themselves as among the”smart people”, without whose wise and prudent guidance and leadership, we of the IKDMBRN (Ignorant, Knuckle Dragging, Mouth Breathing, Red Necks) would continue in our hopeless delusion that we are capable of making the best choices about what is good for us on our own.

Every human has within themselves a tyrannical impulse, an instinct to assume that the world would be a much better place if everyone else would just listen to them and do as they are told. For civilized society to survive and prosper each individual, from the moment of birth until the achievement of adult maturity, must be rigorously trained, by the application of proper parenting, well designed education, and cultural reinforcement, that that instinct needs to be tempered and suppressed. Unfortunately we are now well into at least three generations who have developed in an environment where parenting, schools, and virtually the entire popular culture have been completely inverted in this regard. Given that, we should hardly be surprised that many young people are the way they are. Indeed, what we should find amazing, as I certainly do, is that we can still find hundreds of thousands of young people willing to voluntarily place their very lives on the line in defense of principles which, though possessing the highest ultimate value, have been substantially abandoned and devalued by the society where they have spent their entire lives. We should not be too hard on these young folks, because most of them never really had a chance to be other than they are. Everything and everyone they have ever been exposed too has told them that the very system that provided the privileged lives they’ve enjoyed is the source of all evil in the world and that they shouldn’t feel pride and happiness for their lucky accident of birth, but shame and guilt. To be honest, if I had been born forty years later and had to grow up in the environment of continuous indoctrination of the last couple decades, I can’t deny that I might not be out there shoulder to shoulder with them, parroting the same nonsense.

The point of this windy and disjointed rant is that we need to avoid triumphalism and complacency. Just because the wheels seem to be falling off the climate alarmist’s wagon at the moment is no reason to believe that they will quietly slink away and admit defeat. The collectivists behind this farce have been in dedicated pursuit of their utopian delusions for more than a century and multiple failures, millions of deaths, and untold human misery have yet to persuade them of the error of their ways. Their demonization of CO2 has been so successful that, even with no credible disasters to drive it, the notion that doing anything necessary to reduce emissions of CO2 is largely unchallenged and is included in the marketing plans of virtually every corporation in the world, as well as in every one of the thousands of bureaucracies at every level of governance. Even absent Cap and Tax legislation, the efforts of EPA, CARB, and similar regulatory tyrannies, as well as their comrades in the EU and UN continue apace. The political class, unless their feet are held firmly to the fire by an enraged populous screaming dissent, will do little to even slow the progress. Even if the political will to attempt to stop this runaway train could be assembled, the wholesale dismantling and reconstruction of all the regulatory bodies now involved that would be required is almost unimaginable.
The climate debate has been notable for frequent references to “tipping points” and history may record that the administration of BHO was in fact that. The massive expansion of bureaucratic regulatory authorities that he has provided may have pushed them past the point of critical mass where no response from the population or elected officials will be able to deflect them from their chosen path. Of course, even if they succeed in inflicting their vision of global governance by a selected elite on the world, I suspect that eventually the spirit of human desire for freedom will reassert itself. Unfortunately, the resulting conflict of visions is unlikely to be resolved by anything as civil as electoral politics, in which case the world of the future may look back with nostalgic longing, wishing we had bequeathed them something as benign as surging sea levels, multiplying hurricanes and tornadoes, droughts, floods and acid oceans.

I have a severe di-hydrogen-monoxide habit. I take it everyday in large quantities (like almost a gallon). I certainly can’t go more than a day without it, and if you were to put me on cold turkey, I’d die painfully within a matter of days.

Stonyground says:
December 8, 2010 at 10:46 am
…
On the subject of words that sound as if they mean the opposite of what they actually mean. I always found the phrase “The exception that proves the rule” baffling.

Waall, Stoney, it’s a matter of the nature of the particular exception. I.e., it is one that shows that the rule is actually true. The one calm redhead you know turns out to be a dye job. The token white on a basketball team. Etc.

My Chem training, is a bit old and I-m sick with a Strep. infection and it’s 3am here.
took me about 3 seconds to think, and less than 0.5 second to spit out my cold medicated tea.
WUWT I already cooked my monitor once this week with various gasps but keep it coming, I’ll just buy a more liquid proof one.
That deadly H2O, ya know.
dwright

The original saying is:
“It’s the exception that proofs the rule”
— i.e. if you find an exception to a supposed rule , then the rule is false.
To “proof” something is to test it; hence “50 proof whiskey” and “proof range”.

No, CHOOH is not ethanol. A reasonable synonym for Ethanol would be ‘methyl
carbinol.’ Ooooooo! Sounds nasty, doesn’t it? It is a toxic chemical, an industrial
solvent and a gasoline contaminant, kills over 100,000 Americans every year,
and does over $200 billion in damages in the US alone. Maybe we should ban
the stuff. Oh, wait…

Even a lethal dose of milk will kill you! I think the petition lists should at least be scanned for illuminaries of the movement and presented in a post. Also, don’t forget that having been bitten by the H2O ban at Copenhagen, there was probably a workshop or two and printed handouts warning the unwary of these petitions that would have reduced the number of nimrods who signed the Cancun one.

They remind me of my father’s sheep, except these ones are running toward the danger to humans (toward the anti-human ideology).

My father raised goats and sheep together. Goats are smarter than sheep, better able to detect a predator (primarily coyotes in the farming area). When the goats judged they were at risk they’d run from the pasture to the barn area – and the sheep would blindly follow. He didn’t lose many.
And by copying goats sheep would achieve what they never would have thought they could do – get over high fences. But then the dumb beasts were on the outside of the protective fence, hopefully remembering how they got there thus maybe how to get back.

Holy crap I wish this surprised me.
Anyone with a brain that has taken any chemistry class, should have a basic knowledge of chemical nomenclature. That most basic knowledge would tell you “dihydrogen… ok that means H2, monoxide… means O, so…. H2O…. hmmmm”
Keep in mind that as part of my Computer Science major (a Bachelor’s degree), I had to take Chemistry. Still not sure why on that one, except that it’s a Science degree, so a well-rounded science education sort of makes sense. So any of these people with any science background should know this. Proves that they actually care nothing for science, but care a LOT about their ideology, unfortunately confusing the two.

Did any of the people approached to sign the petition ask whether this was a joke when di-hydrogen monoxide was mentioned? If so, what percentage of those approached signed the petition and what percentage recognized the joke? In other words, other than the 8-10 people pictured in the video, did all the others recognize the ruse or did this video reflect a representative sample of those approached?

>Especially in its pure liquid form it is dangerous – it’s very hungry for ions, that’s why >you shouldn’t drink destillated water or use it as coolant for your car – it’ll corrode the >radiator.

That’s not true. Pure, distilled H2O is extremely stable. In fact, it’s an electrical insulator. It’s the dissolved ions of other elements that are hungry for stability and creating corrosion as a result. If you can, you should use distilled water in your car coolant, it will keep that corrosion from happening. The US Navy uses distilled water for cooling much of it’s electronic equipment, and it uses filters and ion-exchange devices to keep it as pure as possible to keep the pipes in the equipment from corroding.

Although the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide are very real, by exercising caution and common sense, you can rest assured knowing that your Government is doing everything possible to keep you and your family safe.

“When the term “evidence” is used, it refers to evidence according to the scientific method: testable, replicable, empirical evidence. Anything else is GIGO hogwash.”

Being a non-scientist, I’ll go a step further, I’ll say that some of the stuff presented as evidence (as defined about) is better described as bilge.

I’m pretty much a what-I-see-with-my-own-eyes is evidence and some of that I’ll have to cross-check some how.

This row has been pretty well hoed, but when the magnitude of the “corrections” and “adjustments” is bigger than te change being claimed, and when in my 70-odd years on the planet–all lot of them out-of-doors–it isn’t as warm as it used to be I think skepticism is appropriate.

Why don’t you go have a slug of ethanol and hydrogen hydroxide over solid-phase DHMO and see if you can get your brain thawed enough to be useful.

Actually, if someone had asked me “What is dihydrogenmonoxide?” as the only question I think within ten seconds I would have realized it was H2O. So would any person like myself with a semester of high school chemistry. And the whole global warming theory rests on knowledge of physical science, such as chemistry, physics and weather. So how can these people be believed?

HippieJoe, I now think you are way wrong about the women-folk (you have some pretty severe evidence against you), but I have to wonder if you are a young man, perhaps high-school or junior high-school age, like I was when I not only believed that, but depended on it for any hopes of companionship. Although “boring” never came to mind.

Charles Sainte Claire P.E: You and a small handful of people “think” before responding.

We have abundant evidence that thinking is way out of fashion–just read back through the comments on this posting.

There have been petitions signed declaring as “UnAmerican” things like the Preamble to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and others.

There was a clip circulating a few days ago on the question “Is Obama a Keynesian” where people went into a rant about where he was born, his birth certificate,and so on and so forth. There were some folks there (as here) accusing the video makers of cherry picking–of only showing the dunces.

I submit that if there are enough dunces to make a ten-minute video, we are convicted.

Commentor says:
December 10, 2010 at 10:55 am
The petition itself is a willful lie.

The authors of the petition know full well that water does not need to be banned, yet they state otherwise.

Why not? They banned cylcamates for no good reason. They want to ban CO2 (which is essential for life on earth) for false reasons. The petitioners did not lie – they just asked if the signers were stupid. The signers agreed.

Just because YOU do not think it needs to be banned does not mean that stupid people agree with you.

Pure water, at 18 MegaOhms, is one of the most corrosive solvents. It has nothing to do with stability. It is very stable, and a great solvent. It will corrode even the highest quality stainless steel, because it is hungry for ions, as Dirk said correctly.

The reason the Navy guy added distilled water is so salts would not build up, since they were already present. We chemists call that deactivation, or passivation of water by adding a small amount of electrolytes to avoid corrosion.

Constant operation stills are glass-lined for that reason. Even then, the pure water dissolves glass over time.

If all of these “experts” (you know what an expert is) which to ban carbon dioxide output, they can help by not talking. Even better, stop breathing!

Perhaps we should ban carbonated soft drinks.

I wonder how much carbon dioxide they produced by flying to Cancun. It really is a nice resort area. Although I think Playa del Carmen (a little to the south) is nicer. I’m sure they made great sacrifices to stay in Cancun.

A girl at our uni tried to convince people to sign a petition against CO2 on the grounds that it would leave earth and extinguish the sun. (Yes, extinguish) She then said that after putting out the sun, it would return and cause further global warming.
This is what happens when people with no scientific knowledge are put in charge of scientific policy.

Yes, this is pervasive. As a person steps away from the narrow range of expertise that they exercise day after day, where there is at least some chance, that at least some of their beliefs, are eventually scraped against reality, their competence plummets rapidly. A professor outside of their subfield looks like a student. Outside of their field, like a high-school student. Or grade-school. Thus repeated media stories like “OMG, Harvard Business School graduates don’t know how the seasons work!”. What part of business school graduate students having a middle-school understanding of astronomy comes as a surprise? Headshake. Not only is the drop-off more severe than people expect, but people rarely realize when they themselves have stepped off the cliff. All it takes is a little flaw – a bit of nuttiness, an insufficiently critical community, an absence of humility, to go from being a Nobel-prize physicist, to being a Nobel-prize physicist who believes in telepathic dogs. The two look almost identical. But the integrity is lost. Not a few professors emeriti get that one extra step too far disconnected from their field’s checks and balances, and go a bit nutty.

anon;
Yes, that quite nicely explains why most scientists are liberals. Their understanding of societies and the motivations of the humans who drive them thither and yon is grade-school level, at best.

These people aren’t just mis-educated, they are evil. I saw the look on one guys face when the petitioner told him it would reduce our GDP by 6%. He smiled and said that he was for that. They would like us to be in dark ages poverty, closer to the Earth, in the mud.

The problem with your post is you mix fact and opinion. Clearly you can refute a fact, but an opinion is not necessarily a fact, and therefore is not subject to the same rules as facts when refuting them.

Once you can understand the difference between fact and opinion and what is the basis of both, your posts will tend to make more sense, instead of bordering on hysterical rantings.

I’ll confess candidly that I don’t accept anything in the Huffington Post without additional support. I’m guessing that their definition of “scientist” includes a lot of squishy people that abuse the word.

@PhilJourdan said:
“Once you can understand the difference between fact and opinion and
what is the basis of both, your posts will tend to make more sense, instead
of bordering on hysterical rantings.”

Had a bad day ?
I made ONE post here, refering to a statement that Monckton made in public, which many people believed, that was clearly NOT factual (to put it mildly), as Politifact revealed in detail in their analysis.

There is very little ‘opinion’ (if any) in Politifact’s analysis.
So your ad hominem of “bordering on hysterical rantings” seems at least quite misplaced.

Apparently you do not know what ad hominem is either. And one post or 100 does not change the nature of each post. My post was factual, yours borders on hysteria again. Whether I had a bad day or not, yours seems to be constant.